“Market Urbanism” refers to the synthesis of classical liberal economics and ethics (market), with an appreciation of the urban way of life and its benefits to society (urbanism). We advocate for the emergence of bottom up solutions to urban issues, as opposed to ones imposed from the top down.

Environmental review vs. congestion pricing

One of the sickest paradoxes in American law has got to be the arduous environmental review that’s applied to transit and dense building projects, but I didn’t think it was this bad. From an article about San Mateo County residents bitching about being asked to pitch in for the roads they use:

The earliest the city could set up congestion pricing would be 2015, after a lengthy environmental review process.

Note that except for maybe a few toll booths or, more likely, cameras, a congestion charge doesn’t require any new construction. I’m really curious as to what statute makes such an absurd environmental review necessary – any readers care to take a guess?

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About Stephen Smith

I graduated Spring 2010 from Georgetown undergrad, with an entirely unrelated and highly regrettable major that might have made a little more sense if I actually wanted to become an international trade lawyer, but which alas seems good for little else.

Comments

If there is Federal monies involved they must follow the NEPA process. One would hope any new Federal Transportation Bill would allow for a more streamlined NEPA process for project types like this….but with our “Do-Nothing” Congress and current and past “do-nothing” Presidents this is not likely to change without a new Transportation Bill

If there is Federal monies involved they must follow the NEPA process. One would hope any new Federal Transportation Bill would allow for a more streamlined NEPA process for project types like this….but with our “Do-Nothing” Congress and current and past “do-nothing” Presidents this is not likely to change without a new Transportation Bill

I don’t know, but I suspect it’s CEQA, which is more stringent than the NEPA process. New York’s proposed congestion pricing project, which was also federally funded, would not have been so slow to implement.

While I don’t know everything that would need reviewing here either, I must stress that environmental review is much more than just ecology. There’s also things like neighborhood impacts to traffic flow and accessibility, historic preservation concerns, and more generally cultural resources. It’s impact on the macro environment (natural, built, cultural, etc.). I suspect part of the process might be modeling just how the congestion pricing would actually work and impact other roads, transit, cyclists, pedestrians, etc.

I’m not familiar with with California’s environmental review process and only superficially familiar with New York’s but, from the little I do know, it seems to me that the process is way out of control, at least in New York. This appears to me to be the case for the following reasons:

1) If I remember correctly from a news story of the late-1980s, there was a ruling by a New York judge ruled that a NYC environmental review (for some innocuous project like a park or library in the Chinatown area) was inadequate because it did not sufficiently discuss the project’s impact in terms of secondary or tertiary gentrification and displacement. If that’s the case (assuming I didn’t misunderstand the news stories at the time), it seems to me that the resulting environmental review process is one that is misguided for the following reasons:

a) I think environment reviews, to the extent that we should have them at all, should really be restricted to a project’s direct physical effects on the immediate physical environment.

b) Studying the effect of a project on secondary or tertiary gentrification seems to me to highly speculative (more about this in a moment) — anyone’s guess seems likely to be pretty much as good as anyone else’s.

c) The very idea of an reviewing a project in terms of secondary and tertiary gentrification makes economic regeneration (which is, essentially, a broader and less perjorative term for “gentrification”) sound like it is a detrimental side effect of government action, when in fact encouraging economic generation and regeneration (at least indirectly through streets, parks, schools, etc.) should be, pretty much, the underlying purpose of most government actions.

d) Such an approach seems to ignore or overlook how the “problem of gentrification” is really a result of too little affordable housing and too few nice neighborhoods to meet demand. Thus the anti-gentrication movement itself (along with the related anti-high density, anti-high-rise movements) is the “real” culprit, rather than a library or park that might make an area nicer and more desirable.

2) From reading the environmental reviews and response to public comments for the Calatrava terminal at the WTC site, it seems to me that the authors of these statements basically just say anything they feel like saying that will enable the project to go forward. The sky is green, yellow, etc. in these statements if that will help the project along. There seems to be very little scientific rigor to at least some important part (according to the rules of the game) of these statements. It’s mostly just a matter of opinion — and power.

Plus these reviews are so volumnious that it’s very hard for those who are interested (who are not independently wealthy or employed by a think tank) to thoroughly review them and to successfully challenge their validity. This was particularly bad, by the way, with regard to the WTC redevelopment process, as different aspects of the project (all of which were pretty much interelated) had different environmental impact reviews. For instance, three of the very expensive projects proposed for downtown, a proposed West St. tunnel, the Calatrava train station and the Fulton St. train station, all had, if I remember correctly, separate voluminous environmental reviews.

So basically these environmental reviews (which may have some legitimate purpose in some limited instances) are pretty much clever camouflage for the political class and their favored developers (such people NOT really being market urbanists, but more like power brokers and businessmen interested in state capitalism, so it seems to me) and boondoggles for the urban planning profession.

The statute is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires agencies to prepare an EIR whenever carrying out an action that has the potential to cause a significant impact on the environment. An EIR is a lengthy environmental review document similar to an EIS, time-consuming and expensive to prepare (and, in many cases, defend). CEQA is analogous to NEPA, but there are a number of differences, including the development of measures to mitigate impacts that the EIR deems are significant. There have been some recent efforts to reduce the CEQA burden on desirable projects, like dense urban infill development, but CEQA still lengthens implementation timelines.

The timeline needn’t always be this long, but bear in mind that this includes time to carry out more studies, conduct community outreach, allow political bickering to play out, obtain the necesary approvals, and so forth.

I have a question and a comment that don’t really relate to “Environmental review vs. congestion pricing,” but I wasn’t sure how else to post them.

1) Question: What’s the best way to “write-in” to Stephen Smith with a comment or question? Perhaps it’s somewhere right in front of me but, at least at the moment, I don’t see an e-mail address to write to.

2) Comment: I think some readers of this blog might be interested in the following article and related comments in the on-line edition of the “New York Times”:

“After 30 Years, Times Square Rebirth Is Complete,” by Charles V. Bagli, “New York Times,” 12/3/10.

The article and most of the people interviewed in the article seem to be of the opinion that intensive government involvement was necessary for the revitalization of Times Square. I make the point in my comments that although this viewpoint may currently be the accepted conventional wisdom, there’s a good argument to be made that this isn’t really true.

My comments are #93 and #150. A few other posters, here and there, also seem to be making a similar comments. Comment #120 was particularly good, I think.